ontological security and AI

Right, "ontological security and AI"—that's a fascinating, if somewhat niche, intersection. Ontological security, for those unfamiliar, generally refers to a sense of stable self-identity and continuity, often applied to individuals or states in international relations. Bringing AI into that mix immediately conjures questions about how these systems might bolster or erode that stability. Let's see what we've got in the literature.

First glance, the results are a mixed bag. We have a few direct hits, some broader AI ethics discussions, and then a fair bit of "ontology" in the computer science sense (formal knowledge representation), which isn't quite the same as "ontological security." We'll need to be careful to distinguish between the two.

For a solid starting point that directly addresses your query, I'd direct you to Schmid, Pham, and Ferl's 2024 paper, "Trust in artificial intelligence: Producing ontological security through governmental visions" Schmid 2024. It explicitly links AI development to governmental efforts to regulate it, framing AI as a security concern and exploring how national visions for AI are designed to maintain or produce ontological security. The abstract suggests it delves into how states use AI policy to manage this, which is precisely on point. Similarly, the short piece by an unknown author, "Trust in artificial intelligence: Producing ontological security..." researchgate.net, seems to touch on similar themes, though without an abstract, it's hard to fully vouch for its depth. It suggests AI policies should address problem-solving and "affective registers" for ontological security, which is an interesting angle.

If you want to understand the other side of the coin—how AI might challenge ontological security—Chong's work on "Xiaomi and the Promises of the Good Life? Issues of Security and Risk in the Making of the Smart Home in China" Chong 2022 is worth a look. While it focuses on smart homes, its examination of how AI integration "accelerates AI’s integration into the population’s daily life" and frames security and risk within a discourse of the "good life" is highly relevant. It’s a good example of how AI can subtly reshape daily existence and, by extension, people's sense of self and stability. Also, Naito and Shirado's arXiv preprint, "Faith in AI can narrow the futures individuals consider" Naito 2026, offers an intriguing behavioral perspective on how AI predictions can shape human reasoning and potentially limit perceived future actions, which has clear implications for an individual's sense of agency and, thus, ontological security.

Now, a quick word on the "ontology" distinction. You'll notice several papers like Motik et al.'s "OWL 2 Web Ontology Language: structural specification and functional-style syntax" Motik 2008, or Velasco and Rodriguez's arXiv preprint "Ontologies for Network Security and Future Challenges" Velasco 2017. These are about ontologies as formal knowledge representations used in computer science to structure data and knowledge for AI systems. While crucial for AI development, they don't directly address "ontological security" in the philosophical or social science sense. So, while they are excellent for understanding how AI uses ontologies, they aren't what you're looking for regarding ontological security. Tread carefully there.

There are also a few papers that touch on broader AI ethics and trustworthiness, which are related but not quite the same. Díaz-Rodríguez et al.'s "Connecting the dots in trustworthy Artificial Intelligence..." Díaz-Rodríguez 2023 and Qi et al.'s "Towards trustworthy agentic AI: a comprehensive survey of safety, robustness, privacy, and system security" Qi 2026 are good examples. While trust and trustworthiness are components of ontological security, these papers focus more on the technical and regulatory aspects of AI trustworthiness rather than the individual or societal sense of self-continuity.

Finally, for a broader theoretical lens, Mohamed, Png, and Isaac's "Decolonial AI: Decolonial Theory as Sociotechnical Foresight in Artificial Intelligence" Mohamed 2020 offers a critical perspective on how AI reshapes societies and relations. While not explicitly on ontological security, its discussion of how AI design and deployment impact social structures and power dynamics could certainly inform a deeper understanding of how AI might affect collective ontological security.

So, to kick things off, I'd recommend starting with the direct hits that explicitly link AI and ontological security, then broadening out to the more critical or behavioral perspectives on how AI shapes human experience and societal stability.